Coming Up For Air (Eiffel Tower)

Member Name: michaelhudson

Product:	Eiffel Tower
Date:	31/12/02 (1004 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: See Text

Disadvantages: See Text

“Is the City of Paris to associate itself with the baroque and mercantile fancies of a builder of machines, thereby making itself irreparably ugly and bringing dishonour?”

Chic, sophisticated, decadent and alluring, Paris remains one of the most opulent of Europe’s glamorous urban jewels. Its compact circle of twenty arrondissements throngs with monumental architecture inspired by three men and centuries of history. Its most iconic symbol thrusts above the Left Bank and rectangular lawns at the watery edge of the seventh arrondissement in a spidery, latticed, wrought-iron fantasy of industrial modernity.

Built for the 1889 Exposition, the Eiffel Tower was initially viewed with disdain by Parisian intellectuals, scathingly dismissed as a “truly tragic street lamp” and a “high and skinny pyramid…which just peters out into a ridiculous thin shape like a factory chimney.” But in the last century before jet engines and cheap airfares opened the skies to all, the Tower’s panorama of Paris in glorious miniature enthralled a French population still feeling the humiliation of defeat in the Franco-Prussian war almost two decades earlier. Two million visited during the Exposition alone to ascend the world’s tallest structure - 312.27 metres including a tricolour unfurled by Gustave Eiffel himself on March 31st 1889, a height surpassed by New York’s Chrysler Building in 1930. The Tower, which had an initial lifespan of a mere twenty years, has changed colour six times since then, grown to 324 metres with the addition of dozens of antennae, suffered the indignity of Nazi occupation under the swastika flag, and has welcomed over two hundred million visitors in all, at a current rate of more than six million every year.

THE TOWER

There are no advance ticket sales so everyone joins the snaking queues under the Tower itself. Prices vary depending on how high up you want to go and h
ow you want to get there. You can also purchase tickets for the top floor on the second level, although this does entail slightly more queuing of course.

Past the souvenir shops, tourist information booth and the hydraulics that once powered the original lifts, Paris finally falls away as the twin-decked lifts glide up through the girders and the first of the 2.5 million rivets. The first level is a scrum of more souvenir shops, a snack bar, a photo exhibit and the Altitude 95 restaurant, through which queues form for both the lifts and the famous Post Office (open 10am – 7.30pm) with its blue post box and unique Tour de la Eiffel postmark. Boards detailing landmarks disappear in the crowds as they surge from side to side. A small section of the original spiral staircase, dismantled in the 1980s due to safety concerns, passes virtually unnoticed.

Another line, another level and another souvenir shop or three. The Michelin starred Jules Verne restaurant elicits gasps of awe for its views and horror for its prices. Back to the edge where the green runway of the Champs de Mars extends past its sweeping tree-lined centre before hitting the eighteenth century Ecole Militaire, behind which the incongruous, unloved Tour du Montparnasse sticks out black against the sky. Wide boulevards cut through squares and triangles of six and seven storey buildings, overlooked by the distant gilded dome of the Hotel des Invalides and the mortal remains of Napoleon.

Downriver and across to Passy and Auteuil and the dark green arm of the Bois de Boulogne, the Seine flowing either side of the narrow Allee des Cygnes under five bridges that stretch far beyond the scaled down Statue of Liberty and the turning tour boats. On the other side of a football pitch, concrete streets in the sky push the view all the way back to the Parc Andre-Citroen, once the site of a motor works and now another dark patch of suburban green.

Then straight across the river
, following the line of the bridge across Avenue de New York all the way up to the curving outstretched wings of the Palais de Chaillot, trees and fountains in front and a single cluster of high-rise buildings way behind, disturbing the centre of a flat horizon. Zoom in and the little dots all look back, pushing their way between the armies of postcard sellers in search of that classic view.

Now follow the river to the right, over the bend and along the right to left curve of Avenue Marceau all the way up to Place-Charles-de-Gaulle-Etoile, a radiating star of avenues constantly revolving with traffic. The Arc de Triomphe rises side-on from the centre; far behind the delightful white domed pastiche of Sacre Coeur crowns the Butte Montmarte. Back to the Seine, over the plain Pont de L’alma where the tour boats leave from, the Pont des Invalides, the majestic Pont Alexandre III and the arches of Pont de la Concorde. The gigantic glass roofs of the Grand Palais follow the river, its gardens split from the Tuleries and the Louvre by a square of concrete called Place de la Concorde, the guillotine replaced by a ferris wheel and the obelisk from Luxor. Just behind, La Madeleine’s columns hold up the huge triangular roof while the Opera Garnier and the Pompidou Centre are lost in the sprawl.

Up to the top, where on a clear day visibility extends to 42 miles. Today is not one of those days so all I get is a slightly smaller set of the same landmarks I saw lower down and a few wisps of cloud on the other side of the cage. In Eiffel’s old office, a waxwork Edison presents a phonograph to a waxwork Eiffel and daughter. It’s cold and blustery 280 metres up above the city, so windy that the Tower has been known to sway up to 12 cm, while the height varies by as much as 15cm as temperatures cause the metal to expand and contract.

Breathe in the air and remind yourself how good it is to be alive.

TIPS

Don’t
miss the Tower at night when three hundred and fifty two sodium yellow-orange tint lamps light the structure from within, giving it an appearance every bit as delicate as the finest lace from Bruges.

If you’re unsure about the weather conditions wait until you get up to the second floor before buying tickets for the top.

On the first floor, avoid the first queue for the onward lift that you see forming in the centre. There is always more than one lift operating to the top, though everybody seems to wait for the same one.

Walk across to the Trocadero after you’ve visited the Eiffel Tower and take the Metro three stops on Line 6 to the Arc de Triomphe or the same number on Line 9 to Franklin D. Roosevelt on the Champs Elysees.

You can also view the city from Sacre Coeur and the 56-storey Tour du Montparnasse.

ADMISSION AND OPENING TIMES

The Tower is open year round. Between June 14 and August 31 it opens at 9am and closes at midnight, shortened to 9.30am until 11pm at all other times of the year.

Entrance to the first floor costs 3.70 euro for adults and 2.10 euro for children under 12. The second floor costs 6.90 euro and 3.90 euro. The top floor is 9.90 euro and 5.50 euro. Access is also available up the 700-plus stairs to the second floor at a flat rate of 3.30 euro.

GETTING THERE

There three closest Metro stations are Ecole-Militaire (Line 8), Bir Hakeim (Line 6) and Trocadero (Line 6 and Line 9). The Champ de Mars R.E.R. (suburban overland trains) station is the closest of all, while bus numbers 42, 69, 72, 82, 87 and 91 are run in the vicinity.

WEBSITES

www.tour-eiffel.fr/teiffel/uk/

www.abcparislive.com (webcam)

Summary: